Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento: 1929
Fecha de fallecimiento: 2011-05-09
Género: male
Nacionalidad: USA
Lugares de residencia: Harvey, Illinois, USA (birthplace)
Chicago Heights, Illinois, USA (childhood)
Educación: Illinois Wesleyan College
University of Iowa
Relaciones: Larson, Karin (deceased wife)
Biografía breve: Newton Kendall Thornburg was born in Harvey, Illinois in 1929 and lived most of his early life in Chicago Heights, a suburb south of the major city. In 1986 his "lovely long marriage" to Karin, his wife of 33 years, ended when she died, he has lost a beloved son to alcoholism and in 1998 Thornburg suffered a stroke that has left him paralysed down his left side. Living with government help in a retirement home near Seattle, he is wheelchair bound, unable to walk, even the most simple tasks a trial. "Sometimes", he tells me early on, "it takes me a while to get to the phone."

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Reseñas

Black angus por Newton. Thornburg

I really felt for this guy. Tired of city life, Blanchard and his wife use his inheritance to purchase a farm in the Missouri Ozarks (Thornburgh apparently had a farm there also — I truly hop this is not autobiographical.) , hoping to raise cattle. Beset by weather problems and low cattle prices, he's unable to get an extension on his bank loan, and soon his wife has had enough. To make things more difficult his wife, decides to return to St. Louis with their son leaving him with his brain-injured brother and ner do well farm hand. Bang's Disease is a constant worry, for if any in the herd test positive, they will all have to be destroyed. In his case, that could be a negative or perhaps a positive. Or perhaps there is another way out....

In the end he’s betrayed by everyone, his wife, his girlfriend, his best friend, the government, the cattle, the weather, God, as it all collapses. Thornburg is a good writer, though, so I’ll read more of his books.… (más)

Denunciada

ecw0647 | otra reseña | Jan 5, 2023 |

Cutter and Bone por Newton Thornburg

The setting is Southern California, just post-Vietnam War. Bone is a drifter, a gigolo who makes his cash wooing older wealthy women. Between gigs, he crashes with Cutter and his woman Mo. Cutter is a disabled one-eyed double amputee vet. Bitter doesn't begin to describe his personality, but he is witty and original. His belligerence creates problems for him and Bone wherever he goes. Mo is depressed, an alcoholic and drug addict, and the mother of Cutter's baby. Cheery set-up, no?

Driving home late one night, Bone sees a man driving an expensive car stuff something resembling a set of golf clubs into the trash and then drive off. It turns out that the golf clubs were in fact the body of a young girl who has been murdered. When by chance Bone sees the picture of billionaire chicken magnate J. J. Wolfe in the paper, he thinks he recognizes Wolfe as the man who stuffed the body in the trash. When Cutter hears this he devises a scheme to blackmail the presumed murderer. What could go wrong?

The book perfectly evokes the milieu of California in the 70's, and the hardscrabble life of a Vietnam vet. The dialogue particularly stars in this book, and Cutter, despite his bitterness and meanness, is brilliantly witty. It was a very good read, but I'm not entirely sure why it made the 1001 list.

3 /12 stars

First line: It was not the first time Richard Bone had shaved with a Lady Remington, nor did he expect it to be the last."

I'm not including the last line because if I did, you would know what happens to Bone in the end.

There is apparently a very good movie of the same name that was made from this book, starring Jeff Bridges.… (más)

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arubabookwoman | 9 reseñas más. | Sep 17, 2022 |

Cutter and Bone (Midnight Classics) por Newton Thornburg

3.9 stars.
This book seems so quintissentially 70's. Noir laced with dissolution and hopelessness of the Vietnam war and the aging hippies. Not an uplifting novel but so short and succinct that every page seems necessary.

Denunciada

curious_squid | 9 reseñas más. | Apr 5, 2021 |

Beautiful Kate por Newton Thornburg

Beautiful Kate is such a difficult book to review. First, the story goes pretty deep into some taboo topics. How does one talk about the merits of an incest story without sounding like a creep? Next, the novel shows off an abundance of racism and homophobia. From the first instance, I was uncomfortable, but I thought it would be relevant to the plot. It wasn't. At all. One could argue that it perhaps helps the reader better define these characters, but no, it doesn't. This was just one more thing to be disgusted by within these pages.

And yet, Beautiful Kate is a tremendously written and riveting tale of family secrets and loyalties, bursting with psychologically-complex characters and so much introspection. The pain of this story feels genuine. This is one of those rare novels that pulls a reader along easily, but provides more complexity than such stories generally provide. I'd like to have been given a better understanding of Kate; her character is so terribly troubled, but she doesn't receive the same narrative attention the rest of her family receives.

Beautiful Kate is a difficult, but sharp and absorbing tale, marred most by a terrible authorial decision to include completely unnecessary hatred.… (más)

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chrisblocker | otra reseña | Aug 13, 2020 |

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